Living in the Long Nineteenth Century

'Tis the season for balancing the scales of karma, making sure the ol' slate is wiped clean for the New Year. As such, rest assured that I have been banking my balance in spades, making up for some looooong dry spells. Yes, I am the woman mouthing "bad words, mommy," in your rearview mirror when you cut me off on the interchange. And, yes, I have contemplated tax fraud as the year winds down. And finally - yes, I know I am a self-interested, egocentric blowhard who treats her body like a garbage dump and has been know to utter statements that sound a little to the right of Mussolini after a couple of bottles of $3.99 vino from our local Super-Cheery-Mart

That said, I have been struck by an odd phenomena, call us, the tiniest "Big House" in the West. In other words, for a small family that manages to get by on 1.5 full-time wages, we sure do seem to support a lot of people! The message I am offering is one of hope, and not of self-congratulation. I am trying to offer a peek into how much we all have, and can share, rather than a story about the 'widow's mite' 'cause believe me (review above paragraph), I have never 'given till it hurts.' This is not a sentimental piece of glurge.

My husband and I, and our three year old son, live in a formerly-abandoned-now-rehabilitated 1920s bungalow that my mother bought and poured money into once, oh hosanna, the long awaited grandchild was due. In fact, as many of you know, he came a tad early, and I was forced to scream at contractors about linoleum whilst narcotized and on blood pressure medication following an emergency C-section. Did I mention the dissertation awaiting? One of the first people my mom (an inveterate 'meeter') met was our neighbor, Jim . He had appointed himself the local community guardian, and had been picking up trash in our environs and shooing people out of the half-reconstructed house from his second floor apartment overlooking out backyard. Jim is cool. Jim is a gem. Jim has had many, many, lives, that have included stints in Vietnam, and probably, but not certainly, rehab.

Jim's old lady Beth has a real job, working in admissions at the local hospital - in fact, I may have passed her in a pain-induced haze on my way to the operating table - but Jim doesn't. However, he is handy with any number of power tools, and what he doesn't know how to use he checks out at the library. Jim quickly becomes invaluable, as my husband and I haven't the faintest clue how to flip the switches in the fuse box (renters, always) much less anything requiring a band saw. Jim starts helping us out with our yard work, pretty much in exchange for using our washer and dryer, and a little cash now and then. I am not sure what else he does, but he is around a lot at first, and then, next thing we know, he has a minion, Freddie .

In the last couple of years, I have heard plenty of complaints about Freddie, and I have a few complaints of my own, namely, he can't tell a weed from groundcover to save his life, and I have had more plantings meet their maker at his hands than at mine (which has to be some sort of record). But when the two of them spent a long day shimmying up our California Fan Palm, Washingtonia filifera, getting rid of ancient desiccated palm leaves and pigeon droppings, till they were covered like Dickensian chimney sweeps, I say to hell with my petty issues about my decimated attempts at xeriscaping! Freddie, who my husband has sighted lurking outside of the closed Super-Cheery-Mart, and who has returned after oddly lengthy absences that reeked of the California State penitentiary system, has a medieval-looking contraption of a cart that he attaches to his fat wheeled bicycle to haul away....things. Speaking of medieval-looking contrivances, may I make mention of the two-stroke rickshaw that the Riverside Department of Public Services uses to collect our recycling? We are, by the way the only household in a three block radius that appears to actually DO any recycling, and it was a severe shock to the rickshaw-driving gentleman when he DID have to begin collecting on our block, for it took him a good half-a-year to realize that there was a hefty pick-up awaiting him early every Monday morning.

After Jim had evolved his business to the point where we were barely worthy of his attention, and were palmed (heh heh) off onto even more minor minions than Freddie, Barbara came on the scene. Barbara and I entered into a complex micro-loan arrangement ($1.00-$3.00) that my husband is forbidden to participate in (he once raised the amount to $5.00, heavens). Cigarettes are also currency (I have, in the recent past, bartered chunks of Easter ham for cigarettes when I forgot to pick up hubby's Winstons). Booze is also open to negotiation, and let me say that I am eternally grateful to Barbara for taking an ill considered purchase of Kahlua Banana Mudslide Mix off my hands (I was trying to recreate the Buffalo Milk Cocktail of years gone by. The rest of the denizens of the apartment complex next door have received bags of oranges from our tree. Eddie has taken old coffee makers and what not - to the point where I put a verbot on the broken space heaters I needed to set out for pick up, as God forbid someone burns to death on my account.

People show up occasionally, just asking for money. To the point where I wonder if we have some old school warchalking going on. I was sitting on my front porch, drinking some of my house cabernet and perusing "The Best American Travel Writing 2003" which includes vignettes about some of the worst places you'd never want to visit (the Congo, anyone?) when I hear a clinking sound. A short, heavily clad man was arranging trash on a bicycle. I asked him if there was anything specific he was looking for, feeling an awful lot like a salesperson at Nordstrom's, "Sir, may I interest you in some bottles? Or perhaps aluminum cans are more your speed."

"Is there anything else you need? Some blankets?"

They had blankets, but he was living under the Santa Ana bridge with an old lady who needed soft foods.

I had some instant packets of oatmeal, and some Carnation breakfast drink mix, but no jello. Can they even make jello, under a bridge? Some coffee-bags, for dunking, miniature toiletries I had lifted from my hotel in Chicago...

"Do you have any candles?"

Two votives, a magazine (it must get boring under that bridge, hope they like Smithsonian). Finally, two individual size serving cans of beenie-weenie, which I horribly felt a pang over as I had just bought them this afternoon as a sort of emergency dinner for my son.

Finally, a cigarette, which he seemed to appreciate the most. What possessed me? I have a feeling he'll be around again, and why not? Look what riches I could produce on a moments notice, and there are certainly other things I could do without that could make his life under a bridge a lot comfier.

I honestly felt like I was outfitting some pioneers - coffee, oatmeal, soap, blankets, candles.

Historians and anthropologists such as David Brown have referred to the 'long nineteenth century' that may have lasted from 1789-1913; (following on the heels of the 'long seventeenth century' 1598-1715). Now we have the 'long twentieth century' from Giovanni Arrighi, that "traces the epochal shifts in the relationship between capital accumulation and state formation over a 700-year period."

On my short block, I can certainly say, it often seems as if the 13th, 17th, 19th, and 21st centuries are colliding.